Soberly Speaking

Join our Patreon:  ⁠⁠⁠https://patreon.com/SoberlySpeaking⁠⁠   Julia Vogl ⁠ never identified with having a drinking problem, but she realised alcohol was holding her back and capping her potential. It’s a story so many can relate to, knowing something isn’t good for you, not being addicted to, yet continuously crawling back to it. Growing up confused about her sexuality and living with internalised...

Join our Patreon:  ⁠⁠⁠https://patreon.com/SoberlySpeaking⁠⁠   ⁠Glen’s⁠⁠  childhood was something no one should ever have to experience. His father was a predator, and his mother a heroin addict who later turned to alcohol. Throughout this two part interview you'll hear Glen be abused by many people- the first was being raped by a close family friend at just nine years old.  one year later, he...

Join our Patreon:  ⁠⁠⁠https://patreon.com/SoberlySpeaking⁠⁠   Glen’s⁠ childhood was something no one should ever have to experience. His father was a predator, and his mother a heroin addict who later turned to alcohol. Throughout this two part interview you'll hear Glen be abused by many people- the first was being raped by a close family friend at just nine years old.  one year later, he was...

Join our Patreon:  ⁠⁠⁠https://patreon.com/SoberlySpeaking⁠⁠   By the age of 10, Nicole was already weighing drugs for bikies at clubhouses. She experienced child abuse from a young age and had no family or friends surrounding her. This led Nicole to put her trust in the wrong hands, becoming the victim of a horrific crime in high school.  Years later, she married her ex-husband, entering an abusiv...

Join our Patreon:  ⁠⁠⁠https://patreon.com/SoberlySpeaking⁠⁠   Trigger warning:  This episode contains discussion of suicide, substance abuse, postnatal depression, and birth trauma. "I was just an average mum from Byron Bay" were the words that Ninny wrote to me in despair. After her second child, postnatal depression, lack of support and two traumatic birth experiences led her down an u...

Join our Patreon:  ⁠⁠⁠https://patreon.com/SoberlySpeaking⁠⁠   Yasmine grew up in a loving home in New Zealand and never really encountered drugs. But even in a great childhood, trauma can exist. In high school, Yasmine was sexually assaulted, an experience that shaped her early choices. In her early to mid-twenties, she moved to Australia with a new partner and, from the airport, drove straight to...

Join our Patreon:  ⁠⁠⁠https://patreon.com/SoberlySpeaking⁠⁠   Have you ever asked yourself what was really at the core of your addiction? Trauma specialist and co-dependency coach Drew Wild joins me to ask the questions we often avoid. What was my addiction helping me cope with? What came before the substance? How do we start to heal the root cause, not just the behaviour? Many people believe that...

Join our Patreon:  ⁠https://patreon.com/SoberlySpeaking   Tyson was abused by his mother and her partner when he was just 12 months old. The abuse was so severe he had to be resuscitated. After that, he was placed in the care of his maternal grandmother with his older brother, but soon after, child protection separated them. When Tyson was seven, he found his grandmother dead and was once again pa...

Join our Patreon:  ⁠⁠https://patreon.com/SoberlySpeaking⁠   Trigger warning: This episode discusses eating disorders, substance abuse, domestic violence and pregnancy loss. Bianca  is a full-service sex worker addicted to feeling good. When she works, the urge for alcohol and drugs disappears, but for as long as she can remember, she has been chasing dopamine through binge eating, ice addiction, o...

Join our Patreon:  ⁠⁠https://patreon.com/SoberlySpeaking⁠   He’s an ex–pro surfer. The biggest DJ in the world is in his family. And he’s one of the few people I’ve spoken to who took a full year off drinking… then chose to go back. But that year changed everything for  Cooper Chapman. Cooper doesn’t demonise alcohol, he just has a completely different relationship with it now. After losing people...

Join our Patreon:  ⁠⁠https://patreon.com/SoberlySpeaking⁠   Would you recognise the early signs of domestic violence? Kacey Jackson grew up in a lower socioeconomic town with an alcoholic father and was never shown what a healthy relationship or boundaries looked like. After being love bombed by a new partner, she found herself trapped in a violent relationship just three months later. One night,...

Join our Patreon:  ⁠⁠https://patreon.com/SoberlySpeaking⁠   ⁠Conrad Tracey⁠  joins me again on the podcast, this time in the studio. He’s an addiction coach whose own story of transformation shapes the way he helps others break free from dependency. We talked about what it takes to become an addiction coach, the emotional challenges of working with people in deep addiction, how families can suppor...

Join our Patreon:  ⁠⁠https://patreon.com/SoberlySpeaking⁠   For as long as she can remember,  Justine Santowiak's OCD was the driving force behind her behaviour. But it wasn’t until she was 45 that she finally got a diagnosis. One day, scrolling through social media, she came across a clip of someone describing their own OCD and emetophobia, and for the first time in her life, she felt seen. A...

Join our Patreon:  ⁠⁠https://patreon.com/SoberlySpeaking⁠   Wayne lost everything to drugs, his home, his family, and almost his mind. Growing up as one of four boys, he prided himself on being the last man standing when it came to drink. But once drugs entered his life, everything changed. He spiralled into psychosis for days, ran through national parks convinced people were after him, spent time...

Join our Patreon:  ⁠⁠https://patreon.com/SoberlySpeaking⁠   Today I’m joined by Vanessa Kredler , a Sydney-based Counsellor and Psychotherapist who specialises in helping adults recover from food and sugar addiction, disordered eating, trauma, and other addictive behaviours. Vanessa combines her own lived experience with clinical expertise to guide people towards lasting recovery. In this conversa...

Join our Patreon:  ⁠⁠https://patreon.com/SoberlySpeaking⁠   Braiden Tonks  grew up in his father’s shadow, carrying a reputation for violence and anger. He leaned into that image to start selling party drugs in his hometown in Tasmania. After trying ice at an after-party, he quickly escalated to smuggling it across the Tasmania to Melbourne border. On one return trip, he was caught with $40k in ca...

Join our Patreon:  ⁠⁠https://patreon.com/SoberlySpeaking⁠   Adriana’s life has been shaped by alcohol since before she was born. Growing up with an alcoholic father who abused her mother, she always knew something was wrong, but it wasn’t until she confronted her parents that she discovered the full truth about her family. Her own drinking went unchecked for years, hidden behind constant travel an...

Join our Patreon:  ⁠⁠https://patreon.com/SoberlySpeaking⁠   Jeremy Donovan spent his whole life believing he was Māori. Orphaned young, he was whāngai’d (fostered) into a Māori family. But a court appearance for graffiti charges revealed the truth: he is Aboriginal. Suddenly, everything shifted. Who am I? Where do I belong? Especially when the only images of Aboriginal people in the media are nega...

Join our Patreon:  ⁠⁠https://patreon.com/SoberlySpeaking⁠   Marni’s earliest memory is knowing she wasn’t in the right body. Born male and adopted from Ethiopia, she spent her childhood feeling like a stranger to herself. At 18, Marni had bottom surgery, transitioning from a man to a woman- believing it would finally make her feel complete. But the relief she hoped for never came. During her model...

Join our Patreon:  ⁠⁠https://patreon.com/SoberlySpeaking⁠   What happens when a party boy struggling with addiction goes on reality TV? Davey Lloyd was on Season One of The Bachelorette with Sam Frost — and in true Davey style, he showed up straight off a bender, going on to become one of the biggest kooks in Australia. Always feeling like he was living in his late brother’s shadow, Davey found hi...

Join our Patreon:  ⁠⁠https://patreon.com/SoberlySpeaking⁠   Tracey-Lee was only four years old when a male family member abused her. Throughout her childhood, the trauma was compounded by denial: She was told a version of events that didn’t match the truth she felt in her body. This rewriting of her reality left a deep and lasting fracture in her sense of self. By the time she reached adulthood, t...

Join our Patreon:  ⁠⁠https://patreon.com/SoberlySpeaking⁠   I don’t say this lightly, but this is one of those stories that stays with you for days, maybe even weeks. We begin with Shelley as a child, witnessing her older brother accidentally take his own life while they were playing. But somehow, that’s not the most traumatic part of her story. Shelley grew up in Housing Commission while both her...

Join our Patreon:  ⁠⁠https://patreon.com/SoberlySpeaking⁠   All Zac ever wanted was to be his dad’s best friend. As a kid, he longed for the kind of closeness he saw between his friends and their own fathers, but his own reality couldn’t have been more different. Zac was known as the outgoing, loveable party boy — traits that gave his addiction a nod of approval to continue. After eight overdoses,...

Join our Patreon:  ⁠⁠https://patreon.com/SoberlySpeaking⁠   Child sexual abuse has been touched on in a few of my past episodes, but in Manda’s story, it stretches across generations. For Manda, she was sexually abused at just five years old, at the hands of someone known to the family. Years later, she would face the unimaginable: walking in on her own daughter being violated. And in a cruel twis...

Join our Patreon:  ⁠⁠https://patreon.com/SoberlySpeaking⁠   When I sit across from my guests, they often share the darkest chapters of their past. But for Tegan , she’s living through it right now — in real time. Tegan and Jax are widely known for their hilarious, comedic videos that have earned them hundreds of thousands of followers across social media. So when Tegan posted a raw, emotional vide...